Bloody Claws (Camren) Book 3

Chapter 11

We dug, dug until our paws were thick with dirt and soil.

We dug with a frenzy, throwing showers of dirt like rain behind and on each other. Twice, I had to shake my head to keep the loose dirt from falling into my eyes. I averted my ears, feeling them flatten against my skull. Normani dug beside me, black paws as dark with soil as mine were.

Whoever had buried Dinah had patted the soil down, making it tight and unyielding. Evan shook his head, dirt falling from his obsidian snout.

"Too deep," he said in a guttural voice, stepping back.

Ally followed Evan's lead and stopped digging. "We can't just leave her."

"We're not going to." I kept digging.

Someone touched my furred shoulder. I turned to see Normani, kneeling in her clothes, her trench coat trailing on the ground. "Get back, Camila."

It did not surprise me to see her fully clothed. She had once taught me how to emerge from a raven shift fully clothed. Returning from a shift was different with magic. Once, she had told me she could teach me how to return from wolf-form clothed, but I had not gotten the hang of it. From what I understood, it had to do with simultaneously summoning the fey magic in my veins and the beast. So far, I'd gotten the hang of it with the raven. That was it.

"What are you going to do?"

"Call the earth."

I didn't question her. Normani's power was elemental in nature, and earth was just another element. I moved back from the small crater we'd managed to create. Normani put her stark palms flat on the soil and closed her eyes. She whispered something, words I did not understand. A cool breeze picked up, tangling its fingers in my fur. The shoulder-length tresses of Normani's hair swayed in that breeze, dancing lightly. She had not wasted magic materializing the clasp that had secured her hair when it was braided.

The cool breeze grew warm to my pricked ears and I took another step back.

A tremor rumbled through the earth.

Normani sank her fingers into the dirt as if they were knives. Her eyes flew open and I didn't need to see them to know they were power-filled, to know they burned with the intensity of the gemstones they mimicked.

She closed her fists around the dirt and raised her hands.

The earth gave one last shudder, strong enough that I had to space my paws out to keep from losing my balance.

The dirt above Normani jumped. It hung in the air above the dark cavity, hung as if someone had slipped an invisible sheet beneath it and was holding it there. Evan and Ally sank low to the ground, backing off in a sign of submission. Neither seemed willing to brave Normani's magic and crawl into the hole to retrieve Dinah.

I caught Normani's glance. The amethyst jewels of her eyes flickered with power in the moonlit night, a burst of color in my vision.

"Get your wolf, Camila. I cannot hold this forever."

I stood on my hind legs, a few inches taller than in my human form, and climbed down into the well-dug grave.

I jerked the dark pillowcase from the head of the body at my feet. Dinah's features came into view, eyes closed, mouth slack.

My heart leapt erratically in my chest. Memories swam to the surface: Memories of Jacob's body naked and exposed to the cool October night. Memories of his tanned skin slightly paled, of his eyes opened wide in death, of his lips half-parted.